greu

Forms

greu m or n (feminine singular grea, masculine plural grei, feminine/neuter plural grele)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grevis (“heavy”), a popular form of gravis (“heavy”) remade after its opposite levis (“light”).^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary notes that the popular form is recorded in an eighth-century glossary.^[1] Candrea explained the Romanian ending by the pattern of meu and mea, starting from the feminine;^[2] Pascu preferred a Latin *grevus.^[2] The classical adjective is from Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”), like Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús).^[1][5]

It survives in all four branches: Aromanian greu, Megleno-Romanian greu and Istro-Romanian greu.^[2][6][7] The same popular form gave Italian greve, Occitan greu, Catalan greu and French grief, while Spanish grave and Portuguese grave continue the classical form.^[3][2] Romanian grav is a doublet, borrowed from French grave.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is from 1448, in a Slavo-Romanian document.^[8] The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki (early 16th century) has the plural grei.^[9] The Psaltirea Scheiană has the compound greu înremoși “heavy-hearted”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense “heavy” led to “loaded, burdened”, “difficult”, “serious” (of an illness or a mistake) and “deep” (of sleep).^[2][11] The feminine grea means “pregnant”, a sense Ciorănescu compares with Latin gravida (“pregnant”); in Maramureș a fi grea still means “to be pregnant”.^[2][12] In older Romanian a grea army was a large and well-armed one, and aur greu was solid gold.^[13][4]

As a noun, greul is the hardest part of a task, or the main body of an army.^[11] It also forms adverbial phrases: cu greu “with difficulty”, din greu “hard, deeply”.^[14] Modern technical language has artilerie grea, industrie grea and categorie grea “heavyweight”.^[15]

Timeline

• 1448 – in a Slavo-Romanian document, the first record.^[8]
• early 16th century – grei in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[9]
• 1570 – greu in Coresi's Psalter.^[16]
• 1649 – in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[17]
• 1688 – in the Bucharest Bible.^[18]
• 1801 – in Klein's dictionary, glossed with Latin gravis.^[19]

Meanings

Adjective

1. heavy: weighing a lot.^[15][1]
2. Loaded, burdened;^[15] (of a family) large and hard to keep;^[15] (of clouds) dark, bringing rain.^[15]
3. (popular, of a woman) pregnant.^[15][1]
4. (of parts of the body) Feeling heavy from tiredness or illness: cap greu.^[15]
5. Hard, difficult: o problemă grea.^[15][1]
6. Grave, serious: o boală grea.^[15][11]

Adverb

1. Heavily, with all one's weight.^[20][14]
2. With difficulty, with great effort: trăiește greu.^[20]
3. Gravely, seriously: greu bolnav.^[20]

Noun

1. difficulty, hardship.^[14][1]
2. The main or hardest part: greul muncii.^[11]

Word family

• greoi
• greutate
• greuință
• greime
• îngreuia
• îngreuna

Related words

• greață
• îngreca
• grav
• Aromanian greu
• Latin gravis

Usage notes

Bani grei is a large sum of money, and a avea mână grea is to hit hard.^[15] A-i fi greu de cineva means to be tired of someone.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. greu
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3855
4. ^ a b Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. greu
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
7. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366, p. 225
8. ^ a b Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. greu
9. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 4:3
10. ^ Candrea, I.-A. (1916), Psaltirea Scheiană comparată cu celelalte psaltiri din sec. XVI și XVII traduse din slavonește, vol. II: Glosarele, București: Socec, p. 300
11. ^ a b c d Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 284
12. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. greu
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1022
14. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 414
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 450
16. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 59:3
17. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. greu
18. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 21:11
19. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 368
20. ^ a b c Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. greu